When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

After the hype of The Fault in Our Stars I decided to read John's previous books. A few have been discussed here already, you can find them in the tab above (by title or by author) but my second favorite book by John wasn't so here is my review of An Abundance of Katherines.

This book has so many covers I didn't know which one to put here... I put the original one. I would've put the one I own but I do not remember which cover it has :(

THE WORLD: The real world. Earth. Normal lives of normal people. The book starts in Chicago but the majority of the story takes places in Gutshot, Tennessee (US).

CHARACTERS: The main character is Colin Singleton. A 17 year old boy who is depressed because he sees himself as a child-prodigy but not a genius. Let me tell you, Colin can be considered a weird character. He finds everything interesting and specially things that nobody else finds interesting and weirdest of all, he has only dated girls named Katherine (with that exact spelling) and all of them dumped him. The whole book is about Colin trying to be unique and about finding his missing piece. To add some humor we have Hassan Harbish who is Colin's bestfriend and yes, he is the funny sidekick. He is the one who convinces Colin of driving to a remote place as an adventure and that's how they end up in Gutshot, Tennessee, a remote place in the middle of nowhere with nothing interesting except the fact that it is the resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There, they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, a local girl who's a tad bit unstable. As time passes, Colin finds himself attracted to Lindsey but while dealing with his conflicted feelings (she's not a Katherine) he develops the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability which determines the curve of any relationship based on the personalities of the two people in a relationship. It would predict the future of any two people. Problem: his theorem works for all but one of his past relationships with a Katherine. Problem he has to solve because Colin likes things to be perfect.

That's basically what the story is about. Story-wise there is not much going on. The main focus is on Colin and his need to demonstrate he is unique, a child-prodigy but not yet a genius until he does something big for the world, his theorem.

LOVE: You guessed right. Lindsey is the first non-Katherine that Colin "dates". Be aware that the definition of dating according to this book is unusual for our standards.

PLUS: I can't tell you how much I related to some of Colin's thoughts. Have you never felt like as a child everyone said "oh he/she is super smart!" and then as you grew up you lost your "genius" and ended up as average but people still expected you to be a know-it-all? Because I feel this way all the time. All the flipping time and I'm sick of it. Anyway, I found a way of dealing with it just as Colin did with his theorem. Here are some quotes that struck me either because I could related to them or because they made me think:

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”

“You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”

“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.”

“How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?”

“Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?”

Oh, did I tell you that the book also includes explanations as to why the theorem works? It's very helpful for people, like me, who are terrible at maths.

MINUS: Lindsey was annoying and whinny and childish. Not as bad as Alaska was but geez she has her own personality problems as well. Also the story itself doesn't have much going on so at one point it becomes boring.

OVERALL: 4 stars just because of how much I related to Colin's thoughts. Otherwise I would give it 3. The thing is that I still found it enjoyable... it's a book easy to read and I like John's writing. You can easily see John's development as a writer if you read his books in order of publication, from first book to last one.